It appears that Malcolm Glazer, owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is hell bent on hiring a college football coach. After getting to just a few inches from the finish line with Oregon’s Chip Kelly, Mr. Glazer looked east and appears to have found his collegiate man in Rutger’s head coach Greg Schiano.

History tells us that college head coaches are about as successful in the NFL as NFL coaches are in college. That being said, we wish Coach Schiano the best of luck and hope he is able to buck the trend and excel in the NFL.

Schiano will certainly leave some large shoes to fill in New Jersey. During the 21-year period from 1980 until Greg Schiano took the reigns of the Scarlet Knight football program in 2001, Rutgers only had five winning seasons and never won more than seven games in a single year.

During Schiano’s 11 years at the helm, the Scarlet Knights had six winning seasons, played in six bowl games (winning five of the six), and won eight or more games five times, including an 11-2 mark in 2006.

Schiano’s 50.37% overall winning percentage doesn’t seem impressive until you consider that in the five years before he was hired, Rutgers won 19.64% of its games (11-45). Safe to say that Coach Schiano did a lot of the heavy lifting in hoisting the Rutgers’ football program out of the deep, dark depths of the college football underworld.

So, where does Rutgers turn next?

According to our CBTN Proprietary Head Coach Rankings, Rutgers is the 64th best job in college football and the 5th best job in the Big East (will be the 7th best job in Big East with Houston and Boise St. joining in 2013). Rutgers is your definition of an average college football job. It’s not bad, but it’s not great either. Coach Schiano was able to persevere and have a few successful seasons at Rutgers, but let’s not forget that he still had five losing seasons in 11 years as head coach.

So, given all of the information above, who do we believe would be good candidates to replace Greg Schiano? By The Numbers, here are our recommendations:

Mario Cristobal

Don’t let Cristobal’s one star CBTN rating fool you into thinking we believe Mario Cristobal can’t coach. Florida International is our 93rd rated head coaching job, and the only reason it’s not lower is because of Coach Cristobal. In the five years before he took over, FIU had won just 15 games and did not have a single winning season. Over the last two years, Cristobal has led the Golden Panthers to a back-to-back bowl appearances and a 15-11 record. Cristobal coached the Tight Ends and Offensive Line at Rutgers under Schiano from 2001-2003 and would be an obvious choice for the Scarlet Knights.

Jim Leavitt

If Michael Vick deserves a second chance after his foray into the underground world of dog fighting, we think Jim Leavitt deserves a second chance for his alleged actions toward a student athlete. Sometimes, the most profitable opportunities are the ones that have a little hair on them. Hiring Jim Leavitt is risky given the black cloud under which he was fired from Big East rival South Florida, but given the job he did for the Bulls, we believe it may be a risk worth taking. Leavitt built the USF program from scratch, and from 2001-2009, he won 62.96% of his games, won eight or more games six times during, and played in five bowl games. When it comes to mentors, Leavitt has one of the best of all time in Bill Snyder and could be a great value buy for Rutgers.

Manny Diaz

The simple fact of the matter is that when Manny Diaz shows up on campus, defenses get statistically better. In his first year as the DC at Texas, the Longhorns gave up less than 300 yards of offense per game and had the second rated scoring defense in the Big 12. This was only the fourth time in 11 years that Mack Brown’s defense gave up fewer than 300 yards per game and only the fifth time his defense was ranked either 1 or 2 in the Big 12. Diaz would be seen by many as a huge risk given his age (37), but don’t forget that Bob Stoops was only 39 years old when Oklahoma named him their head coach. His defenses play an extremely aggressive brand of football, and we believe Diaz could be just the right amount of risk Rutgers is looking to take on a young coach.

Mike Bajakian

Mike Bajakian is the current offensive coordinator for the Cincinnati Bearcats. Before Cincinnati, Bajakian was the OC with coach Butch Jones at Central Michigan. In his five years as an OC, the young coach’s offenses have averaged 31.77 points per game and 420.74 yards of total offense per game. Bajakian’s offenses are fairly balanced averaging 162.6 yds per game rushing and 258.14 yards per game passing the past five seasons. He is known for being very organized and a “pay attention to detail” kind of guy which complements his play-calling abilities well. If Rutgers decides to go the coordinator route, Mike Bajakian would be worth a look.

Paul Petrino

He is just as ugly and red-faced as his brother Bobby, but like his big brother, Paul knows how to coach. In his eight years as an offensive coordinator, Petrino has averaged 30 or more points per game in six of eight seasons. Additionally, Petrino has only been involved in one losing season and has helped guide teams to seven or more wins in six of eight years as an offensive coordinator. Among active offensive coordinators with a minimum of two years experience, Petrino is our 16th rated OC. He comes from a great coaching background, and we believe Rutgers would be solid spot for Paul Petrino to begin his head coaching career.

Jarrett Anderson

Coach Anderson is currently the co-offensive coordinator at TCU. He has worked under Coach Patterson for 15 seasons and has been the co-offensive coordinator since 2009. From 2009 – Present, TCU has put up some of the most impressive numbers in the nation. Among active offensive coordinators with at least two years experience, only Chip Kelly and Dana Holgorsen rate higher than Anderson and co-coordinator Justin Fuente (Fuente is now the head coach at Memphis). It certainly didn’t hurt Anderson to have Andy Dalton at the helm in the 2009-2010 seasons, but without Dalton at the helm in 2011, TCU’s offense was still ranked in the top 10 for scoring offense, total offense, and third down efficiency.